Market orders vs limit orders
Binance futures · BTCUSDT · FlowMap Chart
A limit order waits. A market order does not. One is size still sitting on the Binance BTCUSDT book. The other is size that already traded.
The order book note is the layout: bids, asks, and the spread. This note is the split you can see on the chart. Heat is the waiting size. Bubbles are the hits.
A limit is still waiting
A limit names a price and a size, then joins the book. A buy limit at or below the best ask sits with the bids. They want to buy there, not higher. A sell limit at or above the best bid sits with the asks. They want to sell there, not lower.
Waiting is the job. Showing up does not move the last price. The order is a row someone else can hit, or the trader can pull before anyone does.
On FlowMap Chart that waiting size is the liquidity heatmap. Color at a price means limits were sitting there across time. A bright band is a pile that stayed. It is not a fill, and it is not a promise the pile will hold.
COB is the current order book: the same idea, live. Bids and asks at each price right now, not the movie of what sat there earlier. The lines through the heat are BBO — best bid and best ask. Green is the bid. Red is the ask.
A market order already traded
A market order does not name a price and wait. It takes size that is already sitting.
A market buy lifts the ask. It buys from the sell limits, starting at the best ask — the lowest price someone is willing to sell. A market sell hits the bid. It sells into the buy limits, starting at the best bid — the highest price someone is willing to buy.
After it trades, it is a print. It is not a row on the book. The size it took is gone from that price, unless a new limit shows up there.
Those prints are the bubbles on the heat. Green is a market buy. Red is a market sell. A bigger circle is a bigger print. The circle sits at the price and the time of the trade. It marks the side that hit, not the limit that was waiting.
When the first price is not enough
Say the best ask is holding 2 BTC and the market buy is 8 BTC. The order takes those 2, then the next ask, then the next, until 8 BTC is done or the sell limits run out in front of it.
That walk is how one market order prints through several prices. Last price jumps because the order had to go find more size. A limit never does that walk. It sits at the one price the trader named.
A thin book makes the walk longer. A thick book can take the same market order at the first price, and last price barely moves. Thick is not a wall that has to hold. Those limits can pull while the hits are still landing. Size that pulls never becomes a bubble.
The band after the hit
A green bubble on a bright ask band means a market buy traded there. Look at the band after the circle.
If the band stays bright, size was still sitting, or new sell limits joined. The hit did not clear the price. If the band goes dark, the waiting size is gone. It traded, or it was pulled. The bubble alone does not tell you which.
A candle of that same minute only has open, high, low, and close. It cannot show the limit that was sitting, or which side hit it. Heat is the sitting. Bubbles are the hits.
The course drill, with the matching rules, is limit vs market.
Wanting to buy is not the order type
A buy limit below the market is not a market buy. It does not lift the ask. It waits for a market sell to come down and hit it.
A sell limit above the market is not a market sell. It waits for a market buy to reach it.
Traders say “I want to buy” and then send either order. The book does not store the wish. It stores whether the order waited, or whether it hit.
What this picture is not
Not a setup. Not a reason to buy the next green bubble. Not every Bitcoin exchange. Binance futures BTCUSDT is one book. Other venues have their own limits and their own prints.
A limit that gets cancelled never becomes a circle. A circle is only size that traded. For learning only — not financial advice.
Watch limits wait, and market orders hit, on Desk or on FlowMap Chart · BTCUSDT.